SOCCER/Uefa Cup Semi-final, second leg/Middlesbrough 4 Steaua Bucharest 2: Does Luiz Felipe Scolari do miracles? The Football Association may be asking that this morning because the manager they rejected, Steve McClaren, orchestrated the second incredible Middlesbrough comeback in three weeks.
Losing 3-0 to Basel in the previous round, Boro scored four; losing 3-0 to Steaua Bucharest last night, Boro again scored four. Again Massimo Maccarone came off the bench to score. Again it was late, the 89th minute. For once unbelievable was appropriate.
Four days after losing to West Ham in the FA Cup semi-final Boro made the Uefa Cup final. It was utterly amazing. Trailing 1-0 to Nicolae Dica's goal in the first leg, Boro saw the same player score again on 16 minutes and when Dorin Goian made it 2-0 on the night shortly after, the Teessiders faced the same mountain as against Basel.
They had climbed it once and set about doing so again. McClaren gambled like a man with nothing to lose, which is maybe how he felt. Massimo Maccarone replaced captain Gareth Southgate on 26 minutes and then pulled one back. Despite creating plenty, it was not until the 65th minute that Mark Viduka made it 2-2.
As tension escalated eight minutes later Chris Riggott bundled in a Stewart Downing cross to set up a frantic finale. Viduka's first couple of touches were lovely, if unproductive, and after the briefest displays of nerves, Steaua settled. It was soon to become clear that Brad Jones, a compatriot of Viduka, would be as influential a figure as Viduka was against Basel.
Before Jones had the chance to show what Boro were missing in Schwarzer, Dica could and should have had the Romanians one up. In only the third minute, from a Gabriel Bostina corner, Dica was allowed to run unchecked and he powered a header just inches over. Sadly for McClaren, nothing was learnt from that and by the 24th minute his side were two down on the night and 3-0 down on aggregate. Space for the visitors to attack characterised this spell and when the left-back Petre Marin, who wasted a good late opening in the first leg, cut inside from the left flank, he was given room to think about it. Marin thought about a 25-yard shot. It swirled at Jones, who dived at it, spilled it and Dica drilled the ball into the corner.
A bad situation became drastic just eight minutes after that. Another Bostina corner saw Chris Riggott miss his own net by a foot but from the resulting corner, again from Bostina, Jones fluffed at it, Stuart Parnaby fell as he tried to clear it and sent the ball straight to Dorin Goian.
From 10 yards out the centre-half buried his shot. The 23rd minute had been the time of Basel's opener in the previous round, when they went 3-0 ahead on aggregate. Boro now had one minute less in which to equal the four scored against the Swiss.
McClaren reacted by replacing his captain Gareth Southgate with Maccarone - which may have shocked Southgate - but the wisdom of it was proven when Maccarone struck a diagonal shot to make it 2-1 on the night. The noise inside the stadium was now at fever pitch and it would have soared further but for Fernandes, Steaua's Portuguese goalkeeper. On 39 minutes Fernandes produced a sprawl to block Viduka after a beautiful pass from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and on the stroke of half-time, Fernandes then swung his left leg at a Viduka volley that was goalbound.
It felt as if one of those of those two efforts had to go in to give Middlesbrough belief and when Fernandes then made another save from yet another Viduka volley eight minutes into the second half, the sense was that this was just too much for Boro. But even though Steaua were beginning to hint at a breakaway threat, there was over half an hour left. McClaren did not have many cards left to play but he decided to throw on Yakubu.
Ten minutes later Viduka rose above everyone to meet a Stewart Downing cross and suddenly the prospect of another incredible comeback loomed.
MIDDLESBROUGH: Jones; Riggott, Southgate (c), Queudrue, Parnaby; Rochemback, Boateng, Downing, Taylor; Hasselbaink, Viduka
STEAUA BUCHAREST: Carlos; Ogararu, Ghionea, Goian, Marin; Oprita, Radoi (c), Lovin, Bostina; Dica, Iacob.
Referee: Lubos Michel (Slovakia)
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